


in the eye of the hurricane

by NoirSongbird



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: "I Know You're In There Somewhere" Fight, Brainwashing, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, elemental powers, superhero au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-24 11:39:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17099903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoirSongbird/pseuds/NoirSongbird
Summary: Several months ago, Keith “Wildfire” Kogane lost his superhero partner (and beloved), Takashi “Hurricane” Shirogane. But when the Galra Syndicate puts a new weapon in play, Keith may just find what he’s been looking for all over again.





	in the eye of the hurricane

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my piece for the This and Every Other Universe zine, Sheith Edition. Unfortunately, the zine fell through, but we're all publishing our work--and I was lucky enough to have mine accompanied with art by the incomparable mondaijo! Find her on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/mondaijo) and [tumblr!](http://mondaijo.tumblr.com/) And click through the art here to see the full version!!

[](https://twitter.com/mondaijo/status/1076327164428062720)

Keith's heart pounded as he raced down the street, trying not to let himself think too much about what might be waiting when he got to the downtown center. The Galra Syndicate had been quiet, too quiet, for months, and he was pretty sure it was because he'd personally been chasing them so hard.

It was the only thing he could do, really. The Galra were the reason that Keith Kogane, AKA Wildfire, was operating as a solo hero, instead of as part of one of the Galaxy Garrison's sponsored teams. Before the Garrison, he'd worked alone, and in the year since his partner, Takashi Shirogane, known as "Hurricane," went missing, he'd fallen back on old habits. Shiro had been digging into the Kerberos Corporation, and he'd confided in Keith that he thought it was a front for the Galra, and then he'd vanished. There was no way it was a coincidence.

The Garrison insisted Shiro had to be dead, but Keith refused to believe it. There was no way that he was just...gone. So Keith kept digging, even after the Garrison demanded he stop.

The Garrison claimed they weren't happy with Keith's methods—and maybe he'd been less than perfectly heroic, all things considered. Shiro wouldn't have approved, at the least, of his aggressive interrogations, threatening lower level members of the Syndicate and the Kerberos Corporation to get more information about their higher ups, but Keith knew _damn well_ that other sponsored heroes did the same damn thing. He was, he was pretty sure, just digging in the wrong place.

So the Garrison kicked him out, and Keith was back to working alone, and people weren’t exactly knocking down his door to work with him. He had a reputation as an angry hothead, earned before he started working with Shiro and kept after. Everybody took one look at Keith, with fire at his fingertips, and figured that he _had_ to be angry and vicious.

Shiro had seen something else. Shiro was the _only_ one who had ever seen _anything_ else, but Shiro was gone, and the Galra Syndicate had taken him away.

So when Keith heard a call over his police scanner about a villain wearing the Galra crest wrecking shit downtown, he'd suited up as fast as he could and run out the door. Nobody else got to take down someone from the Syndicate. That was Keith's job. He was going to kick the ass of every single one of them until he found someone who had some damn answers about Shiro, if he had to go toe to toe with the mysterious Imperator at the head of the Syndicate himself. _Someone_ would know something eventually, and Keith was willing to do whatever it took to find that person.

He'd promised Shiro, after all. Promised to have his back, to keep him safe, to save him. As many times as he had to, from whatever dangers they ran into, and their line of work wasn’t exactly short on those.

He stopped a few blocks down from the downtown center, took a breath, and ignited the palms of his hands. Whoever was waiting, Keith was more than ready for a fight.

* * *

The thing about charging into a fight with the Galra was that you never knew what you were gonna get. Keith thought he was used to people like Malleus and Maleficus, or even Gladiator, and then suddenly they opened up their bag of tricks and out came someone who could turn the very air against him.

Once upon a time, wind powers like this guy's were what Keith had at his back. He'd always known he could look over his shoulder and Shiro would be there, fanning his flames and making sure he never _had_ to hesitate.

Not anymore.

The figure in front of him was tall and broad, dressed in typical Galra black and purple, with a black mask that flared out into feathers on the edges, connected to something like a muzzle over his mouth. He had short, dark hair, styled in an undercut, with a single shock-white forelock in the center of his forehead. One of his arms had clearly been replaced with an advanced-looking prosthetic. A creation of Haggar's, no doubt; Keith had spotted her lurking on the edges of the battlefield, watching to see what her latest monster could do. Keith intended to deal with _her_ when all of this was over.

Something about his face made Keith twitch, because it felt just this side of familiar, even with the bright, glowing gold eyes that all of Haggar's monsters had. That was more than a little frustrating; he was pretty sure he'd never fought this particular Galra before, and yet he couldn't shed the insistent feeling that yes, he _did_ know the man silently prowling towards him, feet a few centimeters off the ground. Keith hadn’t really thought it was possible to float intimidatingly, but apparently he had been _very_ wrong.

It had taken him a long time, and a lot of help from Shiro, to get his control as tight as it was, and even then, Keith knew that he was always dancing on the edge of putting bystanders in danger. His fireballs were useless here, anyway; he could see that easily. Every single flame was met with a burst of air that extinguished long before it even got close to his target.

So, fine. New plan.

Keith had been a scrapper before, when he was too afraid to use his powers lest he hurt someone he didn't mean to, and he was a scrapper now. He threw one last blast of fire to distract the advancing Galra, then dodged in the opposite direction before he ran in, fist pulled back to strike. The Galra looked surprised, turning to meet him just a little too slowly, and Keith slammed his fist into the Galra’s solar plexus. That made him stumble backwards half a step, clearly winded, and Keith pressed the advantage, throwing kicks and punches, a slightly wild grin on his face.

"Not so tough now, huh?" Keith asked, reckless glee in his voice. "What's the matter? Did the Syndicate forget to teach you how to throw a punch?"

He regretted it almost as soon as the words were out of his mouth, because that heavy-looking metal fist swung around, slugging him in the stomach. It was backed by a burst of wind that sent him flying, and he reacted without thinking, shooting off a burst of flame right into the stranger's face. Keith saw a flicker of what had to be some kind of shielding technology, but while that might protect him from damage, it wouldn't make the heat any less uncomfortable. The Galra yelped and stumbled back, but Keith still hit the ground hard a few feet away. The Galra shook his head, hard.

Okay, fine. He was pretty sure he wasn't going to win in one on one combat with this dude, not when he was Keith's perfect opposite. There were disadvantages he could work around and overcome, but not being able to use fire at all was something he was ill prepared to deal with.

Besides, it wasn't really fair to do too much harm to this man, when he was just the puppet at the end of Haggar's strings. She was the real danger here, and if he could take her out and force her to retreat, maybe he would be able to do something for the poor brainwashed bastard in front of him. He’d tried that before, a time or two, and he’d even gotten lucky once or twice, managing to send her running and get her victim to someone who could help.

He scanned the area around them, and when his eyes finally landed on Haggar he inhaled briefly before leaping forward, making an attempt to dodge around his opponent and fling fire in her direction.

"Cataegide, stop him!" Haggar yelled, and the man—Cataegide—spun almost mechanically, one hand flinging out to send a burst of wind that knocked Keith down and the other pulling in, sucking the air out from around Keith's flames as they flew forward. They vanished, but Keith pushed himself up and started making for Haggar again.

This time, Cataegide put himself between Keith and Haggar, and Keith growled.

"I don't wanna have to take you down," Keith said, "but I will, if I have to, to get to her."

"Oh, Wildfire," Haggar said, "you have absolutely no idea."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Keith asked. He refused to take his eyes off Cataegide, sizing him up for another fist to fist confrontation.

"Cataegide," Haggar said, "take off your mask."

"As you wish," Cataegide said, and Keith swallowed. Yes, there was more of that awful familiarity.

Cataegide pulled off his mask, and tossed it to the side.

Keith suddenly understood why his face had felt so familiar, and he wished he didn't.

He knew that face. He knew those eyes, even if they were turned from warm gray to terrible gold. He knew that face, even if the lock of white hair in the middle of his forehead and the scar across the bridge of his nose weren't as familiar.

"....Hurricane?" Keith asked, and he wasn't quite sure he believed the evidence in front of him.

He had been so sure Shiro was alive, that the Garrison's story of a tragic death, body unrecoverable, was a lie, because nobody was ever dead unless there was a body and even then you double-checked. Here it was, in front of him, proof that his faith hadn't been misplaced....and it was being brought to him in the worst way possible.

Shiro was here, but he wasn't _Shiro_.

"Do you like what I've done with your partner, Wildfire?" Haggar asked, voice mocking. "I think Cataegide is quite the improvement over Hurricane, myself."

"Shut up!" Keith snarled, and he took his eyes off Cataegide long enough to snarl and throw another burst of fire Haggar's way. That was a mistake, because it meant he wasn't prepared for the burst of wind that took him off his feet again and slammed him into the ground.

"Hurricane is dead," Shiro said, and he followed the declaration up with another burst of wind, driving Keith harder into the ground and knocking the breath from his lungs. "And you'll be joining him, soon enough."

"No," Keith gasped, and he rolled, dodging another incoming strike. "I don't believe that." It was stupid and overly brave and everything Keith knew people had criticized him for back at the Garrison, but he wasn't going to lay down and accept that Shiro was gone, subsumed by Haggar's creation. Not when he was so close to having Shiro back. "Come on, Hurricane, I know you're still in there!"

"Don't be stupid," Shiro said. He took another step forward, flinging off another burst of powerful wind. Keith dodged away, but this time, he launched fire into it, setting off a bursting conflagration that Shiro had to leap into the air and take flight to dodge.

"I'm not being stupid!" Keith protested, more than a little bit desperately. "Hurricane, come on, I don't think you want to do this."

"Hurricane might not have," Shiro said, as he landed back on the ground and strode forward towards Keith. He advanced like an oncoming storm, slow and steady and inevitable, and he sent powerful bursts of wind in front of him that had Keith stumbling backwards and throwing up fire barriers just to keep them from knocking him over, "but I'm not Hurricane, and _I absolutely do._ "

He raised a hand, and Keith felt wind lift him off his feet and into the air, and then he closed his hand into a fist and bright it down. The air current shifted to smack Keith in the chest and slam him into the ground, hard.

Keith took a breath. This wasn't working. He was gonna have to accept that. No matter how much he fought, Shiro just kept coming, like some kind of hurricane. Keith was more than familiar with his tenacity, and it hurt to have it turned on him. It was also utterly terrifying. Shiro hadn't exactly been _weak_ before he was taken, and the Galra had clearly taken time to make him stronger

There was nothing Keith could do.

His shoulders slumped, and he dropped his hands, letting the flames in his palms go out. This was it. After spending a year searching for Shiro, there was no way Keith was going to be the one to kill him.

"I’m not gonna fight you," Keith said. Even if he'd wanted to, he wasn't sure he could do it. Shiro's wind powers had always been what fanned his flames, but with them turned against him...fire couldn't burn without oxygen.

"A poor choice, Wildfire," Haggar said, "because I don't intend to take pity on _you._ Finish him."

“Gladly,” Shiro said. He raised his metal arm, and Keith felt a gust of wind lift him off the ground, and suddenly the air was leaving his lungs. He resisted the urge to claw at his neck. Nothing was there and there was no point fighting.

"You don't want to do this," he gasped. "I know you don't want to do this."

"I said _finish him_ ," Haggar snarled. "Stop toying with him and _end this._ "

"Shut up," Shiro snarled, but Keith felt his breaths get even shallower. He began to feel dizzy and lightheaded, and his lungs screamed for air. "Both of you, _shut up._ "

“Hurricane, please,” Keith said, and he knew it had to sound desperate.

“Hurricane is _dead!”_ Shiro shouted, like saying it again was going to make it any more true. “Either _shut up_ and die, or stand up and _fight me,_ Wildfire.”

"No," Keith gasped, and he kicked his feet even though he knew the struggle was pointless. "I promised....I'd save you.... _Shiro_."

He'd wasted too much oxygen. Keith's vision started to go dark, and he struggled to cling to consciousness, but without warning the grip holding him in the air vanished and he fell to the ground. He could breathe again, and he gasped for air with horrified desperation, struggling to keep from blacking out the rest of the way. Dimly, he heard Haggar screaming furiously, and a loud, agonized cry that _had_ to be Shiro, and he jerked his head up to see Shiro on his knees and bent over, flesh hand wrapped around his mechanical forearm.

"Keith," he gasped, between his teeth, and when he looked up, the yellow glow was gone from his eyes. "I'm not...."

" _Kill him!_ " Haggar shrieked, and Shiro let out a furious snarl, whipping around and flinging a blast of air at her that sent her flying into the wall of the nearby building hard enough to crack the brickwork.

"No," Shiro said, and Keith started to struggle to his feet. He didn't hear Shiro run over, but that didn't mean much when Shiro could  fly. Keith felt an arm around his waist and a hand on his upper arm, helping him stand.

"Shiro," Keith breathed, leaning forward and pressing his face into Shiro's chest.

"I'm sorry," Shiro said, desperately, "I'm so sorry, Keith, what did I _do_?"

“It’s fine, I’m fine,” Keith said, “just...maybe need a little bit to catch my breath.”

“Did I hurt you?” Shiro asked, and Keith could feel Shiro’s hands moving over his body, checking him for injuries. There were plenty, Keith was sure, from being flung around the city center like a rag doll, but he couldn’t make himself care.

“Nothing I’m not gonna recover from,” Keith said. Shiro closed his eyes for a moment, and Keith was content to bask in the feeling of having Shiro’s arms around him.

“I heard you calling my name,” Shiro said, softly. “I couldn’t hear anything else, it was like being trapped in this cold, dark place—but I heard you, and I knew I had to fight my way back to you.”

“And you did,” Keith said. For a moment, he really, really wanted to lean up and kiss Shiro—but a burst of violet lightning came cracking at them, and Shiro whirled, throwing up a barrier of solid air to dissipate it.

Haggar was back on her feet, advancing on them with murder in her bright gold eyes.

“It’s too bad, _Cataegide,”_ she sneered, “you could have been our greatest weapon. Instead, I’ll have to kill you, _and_ Wildfire.”

Keith looked over at Shiro, and Shiro gave him a sharp nod. They moved apart, just enough to turn and face Haggar.

“My name,” Shiro said, and Keith could feel the wind whipping up around him, sending his hair flying, and he called fire to his palms to match it, “is _Hurricane.”_

Shiro flung forward a powerful burst of wind, and Keith lit it aflame, and it _exploded._

By the time the dust settled, Haggar was gone. Just forced to retreat, Keith was sure, because _nobody was ever dead without a body,_ but he couldn’t make himself care.

This time, he didn’t wait for an interruption. He ran over and threw his arms around Shiro’s neck, dragging him into a kiss.

“It’s good to have you back,” he said when they parted, and Shiro grinned.

“It’s good to be back,” he said, and then he leaned down, kissing Keith again.

The Galra were still out there, and Keith wasn’t stupid enough to think this was the last they would see of Haggar. But  that was for another time. For now, all that mattered was that Shiro was here, and safe, and Keith was by his side, right where he belonged.

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/noirsongbird) or [Pillowfort!](https://www.pillowfort.io/noirsongbird)


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